Earnest Kelly

Earnest Kelly (1908-) was the owner of the Print Works in Little Havana, Miami, Florida during the 1980s. Kelly secretly printed counterfeit money on a small scale for many years, and he began to print money en masse when Tommy Vercetti began a partnership with Kelly in 1986.

Biography
Earnest Kelly was born in 1908 in Miami, Florida, and he became the owner of the Print Works in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami. For some years, he printed counterfeit money on a small scale, preventing his shop - which was equipped with old machinery - from losing business. In 1986, he sold his shop to Tommy Vercetti, who was reminded of his father whenever he was with Kelly; Vercetti's father was also a printer, and Vercetti had cleaned the rollers of the machines whenever his father went to work.

Counterfeit money production
Kelly surprised Vercetti when he suggested printing money from the machines instead of newspapers or magazines like Vercetti suggested, and Vercetti retrieved some plates from a Chinese counterfeiting syndicate at the docks so that the business could print money for the Vercetti Gang. Kelly ran into trouble when the Forelli crime family came down to Miami to force Vercetti's businesses to pay taxes to Sonny Forelli, and he was beaten up by two men and forced to give them protection money. Vercetti found Kelly and grew enraged, and Kelly told Tommy to "tear them a new asshole"; Tommy said that he would "tear them two". Vercetti proceeded to kill the collectors, and he killed Forelli himself in a shootout at his mansion. Afterwards, Kelly continued to print money for Vercetti, making lots of money for the Print Works.